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Becoming Human in the Face of God: Gregory of Nyssas Unending

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Becoming Human in the Face of God: Gregory of Nyssas Unending International Journal of Systematic Theology Volume 17 Number 2 April 2015 doi:10.1111/ijst.12100 Becoming Human in the Face of God: Gregory of Nyssa’s Unending Search for the Beatific Vision HANS BOERSMA* Abstract: This article seeks to effect a ressourcement of the theology of the beatific vision through reflection on Gregory of Nyssa’s engagement with biblical passages that he believes speak of this vision. Through attention to Nyssen’s sixth homily on the Beatitudes, commentary on The Life of Moses and Homilies on the Song of Songs, I argue that, for him, human persons find their telos when in union with Christ they become ever purer, in an ever-increasing growth in the beatific vision. Gregory maintains that the perfection of human personhood consists of the soul always remaining in search of greater fulfilment of its desire to see God in Christ. Introduction Patristic and medieval theologians regarded the beatific vision as the undisputed purpose of the Christian life.1 This notion helped to maintain the unity of spiritual and dogmatic theology through many centuries of Christian thought, for doctrinal reflection on the beatific vision was, by default, deliberation on the spiritual telos of * Theology, Regent College, 5800 University Blvd., Vancouver V6T 2E4, British Columbia, Canada. 1 While doctrinal attention to the beatific vision has largely disappeared, the topic has continued to garner attention among historians of doctrine, no doubt as a result of the ubiquity of the doctrine in the history of Christian thought. See, most notably, Kenneth E. Kirk, The Vision of God: The Christian Doctrine of the Summum Bonum: The Bamptom Lectures for 1928 (London: Longmans, Green, 1932); Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, trans. Asheleigh Moorhouse (Leighton Buzzard: The Faith Press, 1973); Christian Trottmann, La Vision béatifique des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par Benoît XII (Rome: École française de Rome, 1995); Severin Valentinov Kitanov, Beatific Enjoyment in Medieval Scholastic Debates (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2014). © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 132 Hans Boersma human existence.2 The marginalization of the beatific vision as a dogmatic (and spiritual) locus may be traced to a variety of factors. The theology of the Reformation played some role,3 as have a self-conscious marginalization of teleological notions in modern science4 and a broader modern tendency to emphasize this-worldly goods as the ends of human life. The cumulate force of a series of factors is an unfortunate neglect of the theology of the beatific vision.5 There is good reason for a ressourcement of this aspect of classical theology. The decline of the beatific vision as a key element of eschatological reflection impoverishes Christian spirituality – in particular the Christian hope and, by implication, Christian identity – in serious ways. Its replacement in extra-theological reflection by the presumption that the pursuit of pleasure and material wellbeing represents the telos of human life renders impossible the proper flourishing of the human soul. This article thus aims at an unapologetic ressourcement of the doctrine and spirituality of the beatific vision by means of a discussion of Gregory of Nyssa’s understanding of the theme. A genuine and successful retrieval of this telos will prove to be ecclesially and culturally no less significant than its loss in the modern period. 2 Cf. the helpful discussion on the split between spirituality and theology in Hans Urs von Balthasar, ‘Theology and Sanctity’, in Explorations in Theology, vol. 1, The Word Made Flesh (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), pp. 181–209. 3 See Suzanne McDonald, ‘Beholding the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ: John Owen and the “Reforming” of the Beatific Vision’, in Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones, eds., The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 141–58. Franciscus Junius, Amandus Polanus, Antonius Walaeus and Francis Turretin are among the scholastic Reformed theologians who pay attention to the beatific vision. Puritan theologians (such as Lewis Bayly, Isaac Ambrose, Richard Baxter, John Owen, Thomas Watson and later also Jonathan Edwards) picked up on the theme as part of their focus on matters of Christian spirituality and anagogy. The recent book by Anthony C. Thiselton also contains two chapters dealing with the beatific vision (Life after Death: A New Approach to the Last Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), pp. 185–215). 4 M.B. Foster’s renowned essay, ‘The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science’ (Mind 43 (1934), pp. 446–68) is revealing in this regard. Failing to recognize either the explicitly anti-Christian roots or the secularist outcomes of seventeenth-century philosophical developments, Foster erroneously attributes them to the Christian doctrine of creation. While he celebrates the occlusion of teleology and the separation between Creator and creature in the modern period, my starting point in this essay is that the materialist and immanentist focus of modernity is something to be lamented. Although I write of the occlusion of teleology, empiricism does have its own presuppositions and aims; it simply hides them and is often unconscious of them. In modernity, the satisfaction of desires through ever-increasing material consumption has replaced the beatific vision as the telos of human existence. 5 This neglect includes to some extent Catholic theology. However, for an insightful contemporary Catholic treatment that draws on Thomas Aquinas, see Matthew Levering, Jesus and the Demise of Death: Resurrection, Afterlife, and the Fate of the Christian (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), pp. 109–25. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Becoming Human in the Face of God 133 The long tradition of reflection on the beatific vision is based primarily on the biblical promise that after death believers will see God face to face,6 along with descriptions of theophanic experiences of Old as well as New Testament saints7 (which occur despite repeated biblical claims that no one can see God8), and passages that speak more broadly about life before God in terms of vision and/or light.9 In much of the Christian mystical tradition, particularly where the influence of Gregory of Nyssa and of Dionysius has been prominent, reflection on these passages is linked with attention to texts that speak of God’s self-revelation in terms of darkness.10 In this article, I will reflect particularly on Nyssen’s engagement with biblical passages that to his mind speak of the beatific vision itself, and so my focus will be on his homilies on Matthew 5:8, his commentary on Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai, and his sermons on the Song of Songs. Engagement with the fourth-century Cappadocian mystical theologian Gregory of Nyssa is particularly germane in an attempt to retrieve the spiritual and dogmatic theme of the beatific vision. The theme was of great significance to the Bishop of Nyssa, as he repeatedly reflected on it, often in passing, and on three occasions at some length. His sixth homily on the Beatitudes (probably written in the mid to late 370s), as well as his commentary on The Life of Moses and his Homilies on the Song of Songs (both of which probably stem from the 390s),11 deal extensively with the beatific vision. Furthermore, Gregory was a theologian for whom Christian doctrine, biblical interpretation, pastoral theology and personal ascetical practices were closely linked together. In each of these areas, Gregory’s anagogical (or upward- leading) approach to theology inspired in him a desire to move from this-worldly, earthly realities to otherworldly, heavenly ones. The doctrine of the beatific vision fits neatly with Nyssen’s view of biblical interpretation as an upward move from history 6 The most obvious passages we may think of here are Job 19:26−27; Mt. 5:8; Jn 17:24; 1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 5:6; and 1 Jn 3:2. 7 The most-discussed theophanies are the Lord’s appearing to Abraham (Gen. 18), Jacob (Gen. 28 and 32), Moses (Exod. 33−4; Num. 12:7−8; Heb. 11:27), Micaiah (1 Kgs 22:19), Isaiah (Isa. 6:1−5), Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:4−28; 8:1−4), Peter, James and John (Mt. 17:1−8 and pars.), Paul (Acts 9:3−9; 2 Cor. 12:1−4), and John (Rev. 1:12−16; 4−5). 8 Exod. 33:20; Jn 1:18; 1 Tim. 6:16; 1 Jn 4:12. 9 Some of the passages most frequently referenced in the Christian tradition in this regard are Ps. 27; 36:9; 27:20; 80:19; Isa. 26:10; 53:2; 64:4; 66:14; Mt. 18:10; Jn 14:8−9; 1 Cor. 2:9; 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6; and Rev. 21:23−4. 10 Exod. 20:21; 24:18; Ps. 18:11; Song 2:3; 5:2; 5:5−6. For Gregory’s use of the biblical theme of darkness, see Martin Laird, ‘Darkness’, in Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero, eds., The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 203–5. Laird, following the lead of Bernard McGinn, emphasizes that Gregory uses the apophatic theme of darkness only in exegetical contexts that demand such attention to it. See Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Divine Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 174–203. 11 On internal grounds, it seems to me that The Life of Moses was written before the Homilies on the Song of Songs. See Hans Boersma, Embodiment and Virtue in Gregory of Nyssa: An Anagogical Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 231 n. 95. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 134 Hans Boersma to spirit, with his desire to prepare his congregation for eternal life, and with his conviction that a life of almsgiving, care for the sick, and bodily renunciation are indispensable in reaching the aim of the Christian life.
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